Stephan Pyles executive chef Matt McAllister some mint vinaigrette Saturday during his farm-to-table cooking demonstration at St. Thomas the Apostle Church.
Matt McCallister, executive chef for Stephan Pyles Restaurant, led a cooking demonstration Saturday at St. Thomas the Apostle Church, using fresh and local ingredients. In fact, some came from the church’s very own community garden, which Advocate wrote about last year.
But most of the food came from local purveyor Tom Motley, who has farms in Merit and near Farmersville. We’ve written about local farmers, but McAllister and Motley offered some of their tips on how to shop local and organic.
“There are so many resources here,” Motley says. “People just need to educate themselves.”
Where did the food come from? Many grocery stores promote organic, but check out where the food actually came from. Sometimes it traces all the way back to South America. “The carbon footprint of that sort of diminishes the whole point of organic,” McCallister says. As a general rule, Motley says to look for food that has traveled less than 100 miles. I tested this out at the Dallas Farmer’s Market, asking a vendor where her onions came from. She consulted with the others behind the stand and finally came up with, “Mexico.” Motley says only two sellers there are actually local farmers.
Some tried and true farmer’s markets that McCallister and Motley recommend: The Green Spot by White Rock Lake and Brian Cummings’ market, which sets up 3-7 p.m. every Thursday at Mockingbird Station.
To find out about more local grub, check out the Advocate story from last March.
